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We just finished an ICANN telephone board meeting. The resolutions have been posted to the ICANN web site. The resolutions were posted just a few hours after the meeting completed. Good hustle folks. (People have complained about the delay.)

I did not participate in discussions about or vote on the .mobi application because of my relationship with Nokia.

TypePad is one thing. I have a few other things I've done with them although nothing existing at the moment. I did not work directly on the .mobi bid however. I decided to error on the side of caution regarding conflict of interest issues.

ICANN should perhaps consider making clear in their sTLD agreements that they reserve themselves the right to allow non-TLD registrations directly under the root. TLD sponsors should thus be aware that the Net Present Value of their limited monopoly on a new TLD's registry might be smaller than what they are anticipating... This might save some grief, damage claims and legal hassles down the road ;-)

Besides, [B]any[/B] citeria or decision by ICANN — e.g. based on a beauty contest — as to who will be awarded the contract to operate a gTLD or sTLD is bound to come under heavy criticism. IMHO, it's better for ICANN to extirpate itself out of that role altogether, and let e.g. auction-based, FCFS and UDRP mechanisms decide who gets to use which root-level domain name...

Complaints about delays have, in the recent past, been less about posting of board resolutions -- these are usually online within hours. Rather, the complaint is that the ICANN board hasn't published any *minutes* for one and a half years, against its obligation under the bylaws to approve and publish these "promptly."

I agree. There is no need for a corporate take over of the 'mobile internet' by Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, others...

With all those players in the same sandbox throwing sand in each others eyes, the ultimate product will be less than dynamic, just a sell job.

Not to mention the seriousness of "security implications" in the age of terrorism -- especially with regard to VOIP and how illicit entities can have open season in building private, unchecked networks outside the juristriction of US law (.mobi will be under Finnish authority versus the US, for better or worse.)